Palm Beach Gardens is scooping up unincorporated pockets along the city’s edges, and the latest target for annexation is 14 acres off Richard Road. Seacoast Utility Authority owns the property, where it has a water pumping and storage facility. Palm Beach Gardens doesn’t stand to gain tax revenue from the annexation because the property just west of Alternate A1A is tax-exempt....

GL Homes is the leading builder in and around the Agricultural Reserve Area, where developers must preserve 60 percent of their land. GL proposes to preserve land outside of the reserve in exchange for being allowed to build on 100 percent of three parcels in the reserve. With this proposal, GL wants to exploit one favor to get a bigger one. Six months ago, the county commission allowed GL 700 percent more homes than rules had allowed on 4,900 acres near The Acreage, the large unincorporated community west of West Palm Beach. That project is called Indian Trails Grove....

Courtesy of Inlet Outlet.
In January, JIC residents got an opportunity to meet with Karen Marcus, a Palm Beach County Commissioner for 28 years. Hosted by Colony Garden Club, Marcus’s topic How to Preserve North County Quality of Life, drew strong interest.
While in office, Marcus pursued sustainable growth. She is responsible for acquiring the many parks and green spaces that give North County its rural vibe.
Though retired from the Commission, she continues to push for policies that will “preserve the natural assets that make Palm Beach County a very special place to live, work and raise families.”
Marcus’s talk generated a lively question and answer...

By: Timothy Hullihan
If we designed our homes the way we design cities and suburbs – around the convenient use of automobiles – our homes would not be as comfortable and intimate as we know them to be. Our homes are sanctuary-like places in which we draw closest to those we love and hold dear. Our car-centric cities are places we drive to, through, and away from, but are unlikely to experience deep sanctuary-like “placemaking” there. It wasn’t always this way, and can’t be in the future if we are to grow healthy communities, and conserve the land we need for...

Watching the evening news a few months ago three items appeared in succession that caught my attention. First, a news report indicated that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) would continue discharging billions of gallons of freshwater from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River for weeks to come. Next up was a related news story highlighting a visit by a tenured politician from Tallahassee who was touring the affected region....